Abstract
Determining differences in regional carbon emissions and the factors that affect these differences is important in the realization of differentiated emissions mitigation policies. This paper adopts the Theil index and the partial least square-variable importance of projection (PLS-VIP) method to analyze the change characteristics, regional differences and causes of carbon emissions, as well as the extent to which various factors influenced carbon emissions in China’s eight economic regions in 2005–2017. The results indicate that (1) during the study period, carbon emissions in the eight economic regions displayed a rigid uptrend with a phased characteristic. The growth rates of carbon emissions were different across the studied regions. (2) The overall difference in regional carbon emissions showed an increasing trend, mainly owing to increasing interregional differences. (3) The extent of the influence and explanatory ability of each factor on regional carbon emissions and discrepancies in carbon emissions were different. Population size, economic development, and energy intensity were found to be the three main factors influencing regional carbon emission changes. Industrial structure and urbanization were also contributors to regional differences in emissions. The influence of energy structure on regional carbon emissions and its explanatory power were weak on the whole, but its elastic coefficients and VIP values changed significantly. Finally, regionally targeted proposals for emissions mitigation are offered.
Highlights
With continuous economic development and increasing consumption of fossil fuels, China became the largest carbon emitter worldwide in 2007 [1]
What are the characteristics of carbon emissions changes in different regions? Second, what are the major driving factors of regional carbon emissions in China, and how do these factors affect regional carbon emissions? Third, what are the differences of the drivers of carbon emissions across various regions? Judging from these, this paper takes China’s eight economic regions—as defined by the Development Research Center of the State Council based on similar levels of economic development—as its research object
Represents real GDP per capita; T means energy intensity; E indicates energy structure; S represents industrial structure; U is urbanization rate; ε is the random error term. α1 ∼ α6 are the elastic coefficients, indicating the change degree of carbon emission caused by 1% change of each explanatory variable
Summary
With continuous economic development and increasing consumption of fossil fuels, China became the largest carbon emitter worldwide in 2007 [1]. It should be pointed out that, due to China’s vast size, there are profound disparities in resource endowments, economic development levels, population scales, industrial structures and energy efficiencies across various regions or provinces (including municipalities and autonomous regions, collectively referred to as provinces) within China, leading to great differences in carbon emissions and their influencing factors [4,5,6,7]. Under these circumstances, it is of great import to determine the characteristics of carbon emissions in various provinces and their underlying driving factors. Within the framework of national target emission reductions, we calculated the energy-related carbon emissions of these economic regions between 2006 and 2017 with updated terminal energy consumption data in every province of China and broadly analyzed the features, regional disparities, and the main drivers of carbon emissions in each region
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